Helping Faculty Work with International Writers across the Disciplines.

Young, Carolyn; Powers, Judith

A University of Wyoming program designed to help faculty work on writing skills with students, primarily graduate students, for whom English is a second language (ESL) is described. The workshop was developed in response to increasing requests for writing center help with ESL graduate students. The report describes several different early approaches and the workshop that grew out of those experiences, which was intended to: (1) promote exchange of ideas among faculty; (2) help content-area faculty understand the rhetorical and cultural differences between first and second language writing, and their implications for teaching and supervision of research; (3) provide useful background materials on ESL writing and suggestions for working effectively and efficiently with ESL writers; and (4) suggest how faculty might use the writing center's individualized or small-group conferencing to assist them. One highlight of the workshop was a panel of five foreign students who spoke about the most difficult issues facing them as second-language writers. Ten suggestions for making the classroom more accessible to ESL writers, 5 ways to help students use the writing center, and 5 ways to help thesis and dissertation writers use the writing center are then offered. (MSE)